The company bought the rights to the specials.
The company will air them on its own service, for its customers.
As they have every right to do.
Well, I don't have Apple TV so I won't get to see it this year.
But folks, this is just normal business. Nothing untoward about it. Sad, though.
My wife has all the DVDs.
Seen them and have memorized pretty much.
I’ve pulled the short-lived QM DVDs of Most Wanted to binge-watch.
There are likely multiple sites that will have bootlegs, and BitTorrent will have plenty of copies.
I felt the same way about the movie Greyhound starring Tom Hanks. I had been looking forward to seeing that film at the cinema; but, COVID hit and it never made it to the cinema. Then, Apple got a hold of it and played it on Apple TV, which I do not have; and, I do not intend to pay for another subscription just to see one film. A week ago or so there was someone on the Varney & Co. show who was talking about how much money the movie made on Apple TV. I wonder if it ever dawns on them that they could make even more money if they allowed Netflix or Amazon Prime Video to show the film as well.
Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit wrote a while back, that if we have movies (or tv series, I suppose) that we like, we had better buy them now before they either disappear, or are re-edited by some "woke" SJW, so that you won't even recognize the film. I have added the movie 1776 and The Crossing to my blu-ray collection just in case. Also, the local PBS station used to show the film How Green Was My Valley on Thanksgiving afternoon; but, they haven't shown that movie for years now, so I bought a copy.
Great. Those with apple streaming can watch it over and over again until their eyeballs fall out.